


tell me 'cause i need to know

by rain_of_stars



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amoral Peter, Gen, One Shot, character study disguised as fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_of_stars/pseuds/rain_of_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chasing down your prey is overrated. The effort, the distress, the frustration. A pointless exercise. Especially when you can convince your prey to walk right into your jaws.<br/>Peter waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me 'cause i need to know

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I didn’t mean to write this fic. It just… happened. Unlike ‘just like the ocean’, this is set in current canon, somewhere between the end of 3.07 and that intriguing preview of 3.08, aka storytime with Uncle Peter. It’s mostly just me giving in to my need to analyze the Peter/Stiles dynamic. Stiles in particular.

It’s not that hard, actually, to reel Stiles in. To get the boy to come seek Peter out of his own volition. Stiles is shaken by recent events, as they all are – his nephew has practically gone to pieces – but more than that, Stiles feels as if he’s failed. He missed something, some crucial fact, some brilliant plan, something that would have brought all of them out of this alive. He’s the smart one, that’s what he does. What little he can offer to a group of preternaturally fast, strong, instantly-healing beings. It doesn’t matter that it’s not his fault, that there was no humanly possible way he could have saved Boyd once Derek was down. Boyd is dead, and Stiles will push himself to the limit again and again to make all of this death just _stop_.

So Peter takes advantage of that. He drops a few hints at pack meetings, phrases his contributions carefully. Stiles has a mind that worries every problem to death, prying every bit of information he can from his sources in order to gain some semblance of control over his situation. His need to know is insatiable, and he is always on the lookout for anyone he can beg or pester or threaten into giving him what he needs. All Peter needs to do is ensure that Stiles considers him a source of knowledge. Then he can sit back and wait until the boy’s desperate need to redeem himself overcomes his carefully cultivated hatred of Peter.

And it is quite an act. Stiles has never quite trusted himself around Peter since that bloody winter’s night. He tries to pretend Peter doesn’t exist when he can and suggests they get rid of him when he can’t. The boy would probably be grateful to Peter for playing devil’s advocate and making his own opinions sound better by comparison, except that he actually agrees with Peter most of the time and doesn’t want to say it. Stiles wraps himself in squishy human feelings to disguise his sharp-edged core of flint, poking through like a razor in candyfloss. Peter didn’t have time to strip off Stiles’ disguise properly before, but he would love to do so now. To peel it off, slowly and exquisitely, layer by layer, to expose the ruthless and brilliant mind beneath.

Privately, Peter thinks that it’s amusing but futile the way Stiles pretends to despise him. He hadn’t been lying to him in that garage (he had never lied to Stiles, not even when it could have smoothed the road ahead) – it was more than the need for pack that made him offer the bite to the boy, wrist to mouth, like an equal. He’d seen the potential in Stiles, wanted him more as a protégé than a subordinate. But Stiles had denied his own desires then as he denies himself now, insisting on aligning himself with a code that has no place in their flawed and brutal ecosystem. He still fails to realize that he has outgrown morals such as who is or isn’t deserving of death – as if death discriminates between its victims. And yet the fact that Peter has acted as a guide dog to Death’s hand a few times is not enough to make Stiles loathe him. The boy does not find him disgusting, just dangerous. And he believes that he can protect himself now. That because Peter’s teeth and claws have been blunted by his struggle to the surface, all Stiles has left to fear is his mind, and that is a battlefield he knows well.

So when Peter hears the heavy door slide aside, he smiles. Because for all Stiles’ caution in starting down the dark path into the woods, knowledge is far more addictive than any other drug, and he’s come to Peter for his latest hit.

He turns to see Stiles in the doorway, awkward but determined, trying to steady his heartbeat (as if Peter couldn’t hear him, couldn’t smell him, pacing up and down outside the door with his emotions in turmoil before he dared enter the room). Stiles lifts his chin and takes a deep breath. “I need to know about Derek,” he says. “And alphas. And I think you’re the only one who can tell me.”

Peter smiles more broadly. Inside, his wolf slavers.

The most satisfying hunt is when your prey comes to you all on its own.

“In that case, come on in,” he says. And the door slides shut.


End file.
